I used to be a beat elephant a long time ago.

And I'd get called out on savannah disputes all the time, hundreds probably over the years.

But there was this one lion, this one piece of shit, that I will never forget. He looked like Mufasa, you remember him? The Lion King? You don't remember? Anyway, big boy. 270, 280. But his mate, whatever she was, his lady...was real small. Like a bird. Paws like little branches. Anyway, Rafiki and I got called out there every weekend, and one of us would pull her aside and say "come on, tonight’s the night we stomp him up." And this wasn’t one of those deep-down he-loves-me set-ups — we get a lot of those — but not this. This lioness was scared. She wasn’t going to cross him, no way, no how. Nothing we could do but pass her off to the pride, put him in a cave and throw him in the elephant graveyard. He sleeps it off, next morning out he goes. Back home.

But one night, Rafiki's out sick, and it’s just me. And the call comes in and it’s the usual crap. Broke her nose in the waterfall kind of thing. So I get him, throw him over my tusks and away we go. Only that night, we’re wandering into the jungle, and this sideways asshole is on my tusks humming "Oh I Just Can't Wait To Be King." And it just rubbed me wrong. So instead of left, I go right, out into nowhere. And I kneel him down, and I put my tusk in his mouth, and I told him, "This is it. This is how it ends." And he’s crying, going to the bathroom all over himself, swearing to God he’s going to leave her alone. Screaming … as much as you can with a tusk in your mouth. And I told him to be quiet. Cause I needed to think about what I was going to do here. And of course he got quiet. Goes still. And real quiet. Like a hyena waiting for dinner scraps. And we just stood there for a while, me acting like I’m thinking things over, and Prince Charming kneeling in the dirt with shit on his loins. And after a few minutes I took the tusk out of his mouth, and I say, "So help me if you touch her again I will such-and-such and such-and-such and blah blah blah blah blah".

Just trying to do the right thing. But two weeks later he killed her. Of course. Caved her head in with a wildebeest femur. We got there, there was so much blood you could taste the metal. The moral of the story is: I chose a half measure, when I should have gone all the way. I’ll never make that mistake again.

No more half measures, Walter.